Chapter 14 Die a Failure？Not Today.
A blue sky hovers above me, the edges of my vision surrounded with tall flowers that blow in a gentle breeze. I’m small, my chubby hands reaching for the stems as they bend and bow. Someone is giggling nearby, laughing with me, their chubby hands reaching for the same flowers as I am.
I roll over on my tummy and smile at my friend. Her long blonde hair glimmers in the early afternoon sunlight. Her pale blue eyes sparkle with joy. She reaches for me and we hold hands, laughing as we hide in the flowers.
“Should we go back? Your momma is gonna be so mad.” My voice is young and childish. So innocent.
“Let her be mad. What will she do? I’m a princess, it’s not like she can spank me.”
“Elsie! She can spank me!” I whine, tugging on my friend's hands until she sits up.
“Momma would never spank you, silly. She loves you, just like me. I heard her say she loves you like a daughter, so I guess that makes you my sister and a princess, too.”
“I don’t think it works that way, Elsie,” I say, pouting. I’d love to be her sister, just so I could always be with her forever and ever.
“Listen to me, Ana. No one is ever going to hurt you or take you away from me, okay? You’re mine, and you always will be. If I say you’re my sister, then you are. Who’s going to tell me no? Not a single person. I’m the princess and what I say goes, end of story.”
“Elysandra! Anara! Where are you?”
“Oh no, Elsie! It’s the guards!” I gasp, scrambling to my feet and pulling her up with me.
“Let's make them chase us!” Elsie says, giggling mischievously.
We both smile, running away from the guards hand in hand and laughing all the way. The further we go, the taller and taller the grass gets, covering us completely. Soon we can’t see where we’re running, but I’m not scared. We’re near the castle so we’re safe. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.
Except the grass gets darker, closing in around us as clouds fill the sky. Fear grips me suddenly, fear of being trapped by plants. Fear of a dark storm and being held captive by walls of plants.
Elsie stops and looks at me, her head cocked to the side. “You okay, Ana?”
“I-I don’t know… Are we lost?”
“Ha ha! Found you!” Oberon barrels into the grass around us, his big arms wrapped around us and trapping us against his chest. Oberon is only a little older than us, but so much bigger.
“Let us go, Obie!” Else cries, smacking him.
“Yeah! Let us go, Oberon!”
The sensations fade. The sights blur…
Oberon holding me as we’re trapped with plants. Oberon finding me, saving me. Oberon… Oberon kissing me?
I jerk awake from the memory with hot tears burning my face. “Oberon,” I sob. “Zaries… Sylvain.”
I clutch my chest as the tears rip through me, making it hard to breathe. My chest is too tight. My lungs are seizing. I can’t get enough air. Panicking, I begin stripping my armor off, thinking that’s what is preventing me from breathing.
But when I’m standing in the maze in nothing but my underdress, I realize it wasn’t the armor at all.
The rain begins again, a steady thrum that would feel comforting if I were anywhere else, my white clothes sticking to my body as I turn my face to the sky and scream. I failed to redeem myself. I will die a failure.
According to the voice in my mind, all the scales have been found.
But my friends got out. Sylvain made it out, she’ll be safe now. Oberon shouldn’t have been here, but now he’s a dragon slayer—the only one from Obsidian Reach to ever get the title. And Zaries found a scale and passed through the portal, he’ll hunt the silver dragon and kill it.
It was supposed to be me…
Yet Zaries looked devastated that I didn’t get out with him. And Oberon came for me. Why? I’m not worth risking his life.
You’re worth all their lives put together. You’re worth the entire continent. They will never understand that, not until you show them.
“Oh, so you’re back, huh?” I grimace at my internal voice and wrap my arms around my shoulders, trying not to shiver. I can’t believe that for a second I thought I was possessed by fuck knows what.
I never left.
“Nice way of showing it.”
I’ve been trying to figure out how to get you out of here!
“Fat chance of that. We’re in a magical world of Silas’ creation. There will be no getting out of here.”
Do you truly think he’s such a powerful wizard that he can create worlds out of thin air? This is no magic trick, this is the outskirts of Obsidian Reach, in the deserts beyond.
“There’s nothing outside Obsidian Reach but the ocean!” I snap, pacing back and forth in the maze as if a minotaur won't hear and come to kill me.
Just because you think that’s all there is, doesn’t make it true. There are lands beyond this one, places farther than you can comprehend. Silas knows that and uses his portals to go places no man ever has.
“Why would he do that? There’s nothing out there to find!”
The voice in my head is getting on my nerves. He thinks he’s so smart, smarter than hundreds of years of history books and all that collected knowledge. He’s an idiotic know-it-all. “Would you please leave me alone to die in peace? I don’t need all the nonsense in my head. I want to think about happy things before I get slaughtered, thank you very much.”
You will not die today, fledgling. I won’t allow it.
“What are you going to do about it? You’re just a voice in my head. You don’t even have a body of your own,” I scoff.
Tired of waiting for death, I start walking through the maze. Surely death will find me and I can get this torture over with.
How many kinds of dragons exist, Anara?
“Can we not have a history lesson right now, please?”
How many, Anara!
“Gods! Fine! There are five types of dragons in Amaranthine, annoying voice in my head!” I growl. I round the corner and see the guy who had his head smashed in by the minotaur. I relive the moment in my mind's eye, having to lean on the stone wall for support as bile rises in my throat.
There are six types of dragons, Anara.
“Oh yeah? And how do you, I mean, I know that?” I ask as I dry heave. I kind of imagined dying with my mind intact.
Many years ago, the silver dragon chose a mate.
“Another freaking history lesson? Let me die, please. Everyone knows that dragons mate. That’s why there are so many!” I push away from the wall, trying not to look at the bodies. It’s only now that I realize I’ve forgotten my weapons, so I turn around and stagger back the way I came. I may be about to die, likely slaughtered by a minotaur, but I don’t need to meet my demise helplessly.